Tested a white one.This one tended to nose down a little on the fall and rise to horizontal on the strip, but way less up and down that a jig might do.

Caught 3 bass pretty quickly off the little dock on a 45 degree cloudy and breezy afternoon. Fish were right up against the bank. The balanced Leech definitely moves differently on the strip and pause than a woolly bugger.

With the bead sticking out in front it looks like a weed collector. Is it more an open water fly? Must admit it is unique.

This was my first in the water test. No weed in the lake (that may change with the tilapia getting wiped out by cold water). I try to hug the bottom on the strip and pause, that’s been the most productive way to fish since it’s been cold. I hung up on a submerged log once and at about the same rate of a bugger weighting the same. My dock tests are casts in either direction and more or less parallel to the shoreline. I can’t overhead cast out very far with the tree cover.

At 12-15 feet off the bank the water is 4-5 feet. Most of the fish I catch off when casting off the dock are 15’ on in to the shoreline.

The jig hook bent open before the 16# tippet snapped which is what I want to happen. If I’m in the boat, I can electric motor over to get the hung up fly. Occasionally getting hung up isn’t a bad thing to me. Means I’m fishing where I want to be. I’ve done weed guards, but those cost me fish. The Balanced Leech does ride point up tied on a jig hook which helps it not snag the bottom. The bead out front might help keep the hook point a little higher than a unbalanced pattern.

Meadowlark’s post about them got me interested. I guess the balanced leech is big out on western Stillwaters for big trout. But the more I looked into them, the more I saw things that said they work well on a variety of fish and work not only under an indicator but also stripped in.

The lake I live on gets real good for bass in March if a jig is suspended under a cork and tossed near the shoreline. That’s really why I tied these, just to exploit the March jig bite.